Editor's note: Afilias, not Ruby Glen (Donuts), was the second-highest bidder (pdf) at the .WEB auction (pdf). So what's thepoint of the lawsuit and appeal?Reportedlyspite. Donuts (Ruby Glen) apparently was betting on getting a private auction for .WEB from which it would have received more than $22 million as a "losing" bidder under ICANN's authorized "casino-like" private auctions. (Note that the biggest, and maybe the only, profits made thus far with new gTLDs, have been in "gambling" within the private auctions and getting the winning "sucker" to bid high.)

Instead, in the case of .WEB, due solely to the insistence of the winning bidder, the ICANN "last resort" auction for .WEB produced net proceeds of over $132 million for beneficent purposes in accordance with the Applicant Guidebook, as well as ICANN's mission and status as a 501(c)(3) non-profit public benefit corporation.

"... any claims that do not lie in fraud or willful injury are barred by the Covenant [Not to Sue]. Those that do, are not [barred][p.5] .... The Court cannot therefore, find as a matter of law that ICANN did not defraud DCA by stating on the one hand it would follow its Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation in processing DCA's application, while on the other hand giving preference to ZACR's application throughout the process. CONCLUSION: For the foregoing reasons ICANN's motion for summary judgment is denied as to the second, third, fourth, fifth, and tenth causes of action. The motion is granted as to the remaining causes of action."[p.10] [Dated Aug 9, 2017](emphasis added)

We can stop hacking and trolls, but it would ruin the internet | NewScientist.com: "Right now, there’s a kind of internet-governance cold war over the handle [DOI] system. After winning the fight for UN recognition as an international standard, some Arab states, Russia and China want to start rolling it out. On the other side, Western countries are generally against the handle system, happy to stick with plain TCP/IP, whether out of precedent or principle."

TheNewDawnLiberia.com: Measuring the Internet for Freedom: "... in Ethiopia, the government blocked more than 15 media websites and the smartphone chat application WhatsApp. Sites promoting freedom of expression and LGBTQ+ rights, as well as those offering censorship-circumvention tools, such as Tor and Psiphon, were also suppressed. All of this was uncovered through the use of software called ooniprobe, which is designed to measure networks and detect Internet censorship ..."